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Fence Buying Guide and Reviews:Depending on where you live in the United States, fences may or may not be a part of your neighborhood makeup. On the East coast you see much less fenced yards than you do on the West coast. Growing up in California, everyone in our more rural neighborhood had a regular 6 foot high wooden fence surrounding their yards. Some even had a chain link fence (much less maintenance involved but not as pretty). Today you see more vinyl fencing, aluminum fencing, and wrought iron fences. If you live on a farm, fencing is a necessity for horses and other livestock (usually 3-rail fences). Steel fencing and ornamental fencing are also seen quite a bit in high end housing subdivisions. When you are looking to get a fence installed or repaired, make sure you get at least 3 quotes on pricing and go with a reputable company. I was recently stuck with repairing my fence after some wind knocked down a section or 2 and it took 3 months to get someone out to fix it. After trying to get local handymen to come out, I eventually called the leading fence company in our area and they did the job superbly within a week.
Good Neighbor Fence - Shadowbox Fence:In modern neighborhoods today where fencing is done in yards, a shadowbox fence, or good neighbor fence is usually built. This style of fence is popular since it looks good on both sides of the fence (no one has the front or back). Fence boards are staggered on both sides of the fence rails so that wind can pass through the fence itself pretty easily. This is an advantage in windy areas where fences blowing over can be an issue. Although they can be a bit more expensive than traditional wood fences, they are aesthetically more pleasing to look at.
Invisible Fence - Dog Fence - Electric FenceOne of the main reasons we all have fences is to either keep pets in or out of our yards. Nowadays you can get a dog fence, or invisible fence which allows you to keep an open yard without an actual fence. Your dog wears a collar around their neck and gets a small electric shock when they approach your property boundaries. The invisible fence is a great invention. Just place a few sensors around the property extremities and the dog will not pass them. After a while the dog will realize the invisible fence is there and not even get near it. An electric fence is a bit different in that the fence actually exists and is made of wire that is hooked up to an electrical outlet and shocks anyone that touches it (dogs, people, kids). I would say avoid electric fences (as in buying them) and go with an invisible fence from Invisiblefence.com.
Fence Repair - How to Build a Fence:A solidly constructed wooden fence should last a long time even in the harshest of weather conditions. You might have a fence panel or a fence post go bad, but they are relatively easy to replace. The most time consuming part of fence repair is digging out old dry rotted fence posts (with the concrete around them) and replacing them with pressure treated fence posts. It can take a few hours if you do it yourself, or you can pay a fence company to do it for about $130/post. Nailing up a fence board that has fallen off only takes a few minutes and is the easiest type of fence repair. Want to build your own fence? It's actually not that hard if you don't have too large of an area to deal with. The biggest time consumer is digging the holes for the posts, otherwise, putting up the fence boards is fairly easy. Some tips of building your own fence: space the fence posts about 6' to 8' apart and make sure you set the corner or end post first. Take your time with this first step since it will essentially be the whole groundwork for the rest of the fence fitting and looking ok. Set all wood fence posts with about 1/3 of their total lenght buried in the ground. When you have the fence post aligned properly, fill in around it with concrete and make sure you mound the top so that no standing water can damage the posts in the long run. Next step is to add rails to the fence posts, we suggest using brackets that allow you to screw in the rails since nails tend to slide out over time. Then nail in the fence boards (spacing depends on the type of fence you are building). You can get more details on fence design and fence plans at Backyardgardener.com/fence/.
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